advice wanted on diff

[marky]

Think I will buy new bungs, washers and air vent when I get the seals.

Am cleaning up and painting the rear mounting that came with the diff at the moment - the rubber bushes look in remarkably good condition.

I presume that the front mounting stays in the car and you undo the six bolts from the diff.

Mark

[AndyC]

Those bolts holding the diff to the carrier can be a pig, you may find it easier (everything is relative) to undo the bolts securing the harmonic balancers and pull the carrier out with the diff.

[marky]

Thanks - I will have another look under there at the weekend - looks from the diagrams that the two bolts securing the carrier thread straight into carrier itself.

Another thing I noticed is that I seem to only have one harmonic balancer and on the diagram there are three. I am hoping thats just because its an 87 car and the diagram is from a later car - otherwise someone has removed two of them at some point.

Marky

[robertverhey]

When all else failed I think i managed to get a set of stilsons (a tap wrench) onto the filler plug, (or maybe a hammer and chisel, carefully around the edge) then once off I dressed the flats until the next sized down spanner fitted it. Was going to buy a new plug eventually, but never got around to it, the downsized one works fine.

Gaskets, seals, bearings and plugs are readily available from your friendly Toyota dealer, for reasonable cost. I think the part numbers were posted on this forum a way back, a search might retrieve them.

[AndyC]

Two of the balancers are within the subframe section.

[marky]

The good news is that I managed to free up the drain plug so the replacement diff is now viable.

The bad news is the fill/level plug is now totally F U B A R ed!

Will remove the cover and swap it for the old one when it comes out of the car.

Mark.

[Hawaiis0]

Were there any photos taken during this operation?

[marky]

sorry - no photos - to busy heaving, straining and swearing!

One important thing to note - it is much more difficult to remove the plugs with the diff out of the car as you are not levering against anything solid ( diff aways twists or moves slightly). Even though the diff is very heavy I still had to strap it and weigh it down in the back of my van in order to make it rigid enough so that I could lever on the plugs. Didn't want to take the chance of putting it in the car and then finding out the plugs wouldn't move.

Mark.

PS. a Final few notes - I removed the shafts from the diff quite easily with two large levers ( coal chisel and crow bar )opposite each other levering on both at the same time - but using great care - have done this a few times before with totally different vehicles. The first thing to come out is a thin dirt shield attached to the shaft and care is needed not to damage this with the tips of the tools you are using. Directly behind this is the seal which is straight-forward to replace. Behind the seal is the bearing - shaft goes through the bearing but is not a very tight fit. It has to be said that if the bearing was very badly worn it could fall apart when the shaft comes out - but if that was the case you would want to get it replaced anyway.

[marky]

I now have all the parts I need to refurbish the replacement diff ( old leaky one still in car ) - it is going together well and I have all 3 new seals in place and all three flanges back on.

SJ just made up some diff cover gaskets - was wondering if anyone has replaced the cover gasket before - did you use any kind of gasket sealant of just the gasket dry on its own?

also, does anyone know the correct torque for the cover bolts?

Mark.